


ECLIPSE/LOSTROOM

by TheMaw



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artistic Liberties, MOONLIGHT/LOSTROOM references, Vague Spoilers, on the verge of not canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25889914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMaw/pseuds/TheMaw
Summary: Fleeting glimpses of dreamless dreamers lead to one of the great mysteries of Chaldea. A place where what was lost and what was found merge. A place where one reality bleeds into another, and one might catch a glimpse of what is to come.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Solar Eclipse

The halls of Chaldea are too long, too white and bright, and unbearably sterile on top of it all. Like a hospital without all the sounds, the endless beeps and coughs and whispered conversations. A hospital with no patients. With staff that could only be seen in glimpses, making one wonder if they even existed at all. It doesn't have the feel of an abandoned facility, heavy with memories of people and emotions. It doesn't have that strange liminal quality of a place suddenly evacuated by humanity, but doesn’t feel lived in at all.

And he hates it, and is grossed out by it. Not because of the hospital imagery, just the general atmosphere. Like the whole world has come to a halt and no one is allowed to move forward. Like there can only be stillness and emptiness. A perpetual void. For all there are people around, and there are, there's no life. No liveliness. And it makes him feel disconnected. It's like he's not really here, not really a part of this, any of this. Just another magus with potential, but not enough. Never enough. But he can't keep thinking like that, twisting the sentiment round and round this singular parabol. It'll get old, fast, he tells himself. And besides it's only the first real day in this place, not counting their big arrival the day before. 

Everyone's still new, he reminds himself, with the exception for senior staff who should know this place like the back of their hand. Everyone's just getting used to this place. It'll get lively soon enough, and then he'll be too busy to even contemplate something so ridiculous. Life moves on, and if he didn't move with it, he'd get caught up in the monotony. Another cog in the great machine. Sure it was sterile, and sure it was too bright and obnoxiously white, but at least it wasn't  _ all  _ white. At least there were people. There were changing figures, voices and something. Anything. He just had to pull himself free from the dread that was building in the pit of his stomach. The heaviness which was sinking into his body. Dragging his mind down. 

He looked out the great, too wide, too exposed window and the arctic wasteland beyond. Though, he couldn't say he was focusing on what was beyond the nearly impossibly clear glass. His focus fell upon something almost intangible. His reflection, which was foggy, half existing like a glass half full, and he can trace the outlines of his fur collar coat, his baggy, trashy shirt and the hand which clutches his chest. But he can’t see his own face, not that he wanted to. He knows his own face, knows every crease and wrinkle and deep black smudge beneath his eyes. He knows the crinkle of his nose, the pull of his lips.

Nothing to be proud of.

Nothing to think twice about.

But there is another phantom reflection in the window which catches him off guard. She’s not facing him, that’s for sure, but her hair is a shock of electric blue, falling in lazy curls around her shoulders. She’s wearing the standard white uniform of Chaldea. Nothing unusual about that. But it’s what’s on her hand, the hand tossing her hair aside, the hand that is half in reality and half ghostly. The red markings of a Master. An unfamiliar seal. A Master candidate? No, she’s… 

There’s another before her, a figure he can vaguely make out. They dress in attire unfamiliar to this era, or, at least, unfamiliar to him. All white and blue and elegance. When he blinks, because his eyes hurt and they sting like they’ve gone dry, they’re no longer there. He turns his head, casts his gaze around and sees no one.

He is alone at this too large window, the whole of Chaldea seemingly passing him by. But no sign of a blue haired girl. No sign of a figure in white and blue and violet or purples. He’ll forget about her, he tells himself. He was just hallucinating from a lack of sleep, he begs himself. It won’t happen again.

But it does, again and again. Brief glimpses of a phantom girl, laughing or walking or running to who knew where. He sees her electric blue hair, half focused profiles. He sees her hand, seals whole or missing, or fading. Sometimes he can catch her doing a sudden about-face, her face obscured by those feathery curls and waves. She’s not always in that white getup. It changes like the seasons, dancing through other uniforms or casual attire. Once, when he was leaving his room he saw her in a bikini, and immediately he turned his gaze away, cheeks flush with embarrassment. 

He was starting to wonder if he was going mad. There was no one with that description, that appearance, among the current staff or candidates. He’s asked. Asked Roman, however rushed and brief, even asked Mash. Even that guy, that blond haired favorite. But no one knows of a candidate like her. No one would believe him anyway if he told the full story.

So it was better if he could forget… better if he could focus on what Chaldea asked of him and what he wanted out of it if he could keep that focus.

It would have been better. But still, even when he shoved his head into books and forged his way through the library in order to prove himself, to prove he wasn’t just some punk kid who got lucky, these glimpses continued to catch his attention. Movement out of the corner of his eye when he’d thought he was alone. The sight of her in the cafeteria, a tray in her hands like she actually belonged in the world around them. It had startled him, made him almost drop his own food all over the too clean floor.

He swore she’d started to turn then, as though alerted by the noise of his dumb mistake. And then she was gone, leaving him confused and embarrassed with too many eyes on him. His skin prickled even though there was nothing for him to snap at, even if no one had laughed at his little slip up.

If that had been it then he could have dealt with the experience and moved on. Pushed himself to move past it, once more convinced himself that it had been the product of a lack of sleep, of proper nutrition, that he’d just let the stress get to him more than usual. If she had stayed a silent, if persistent, figment of his imagination then he could have ignored everything else and pretended that all was well. It worked well, even if it wasn’t the healthiest response he’d ever had to something, it still allowed him to do what he needed to.

Until he heard it. The fading snippet of a conversation as he passed by that very same window which had snared his attention all that time ago when this mess had started. An event only notable because he’d glimpsed electric blue curls in his periphery, been struck by the impression that their length had changed before he resolved to ignore the phantom entirely as he pushed himself to walk on by rather than linger. Only to hear it, to hear her, a voice he had never come across before in his time within Chaldea. A voice that didn’t have the staff’s trained pleasantry, or Team A’s uneven camaraderie.

A voice that, while tired, nonetheless had a kind of determined quality that demanded attention.

“ - with us. You’re gonna have to keep up.”

He’d missed a step then, caught off guard and left reeling for a moment as he processed the unfamiliarity of what had just been said. That he’d heard it at all, when he was the only one present in that secluded hallway stuck between heading nowhere and being another cog in the machine. Left staring at her hazy profile just behind him, half expecting to see her reflection cast upon the glass of the window, for her to be watching him within it the way he had sometimes watched her.

She was gone, the meaning of her words lost. Whomever they had been intended for unknown. Had she meant him? Was she aware of him somehow? Had she caught snippets and glimpses of him and he’d been unaware of it as he’d thought she was of him? Did she think he wasn’t good enough as well, and intended this encounter as a means to discourage him? To tell him to shape up or he would be left behind, exactly as his own internal doubts suggested he might be?

Dull anger surfaced at the thought and his hand found its habitual place on his chest, fisting loose fabric between faintly trembling fingers. How dare she, some unknown, a ghost for lack of any person being able to attest to her existence, how dare she say that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demands of being a Chaldean master?

He’d show her, real or not. That, Kadoc resolved, would be his answer.


	2. Lunar Eclipse

Night called for dim lights, the main lights in each hall turning off with a near finality. A sudden wave of darkness, broken by the gentle illumination of the floor lights. Those blue toned lights which provided guidance in the corridors, casting diffused shadows along the walls and ceilings. Their dim glow allowed the generators some rest, since they hardly consumed the same amount of energy as the regular lights. It was a decent time to walk, to think and reflect, when the halls were empty as people either slept or reflected on the day and each passing hour as they get closer and closer to their goals within the confines of their rooms. It was a rare moment of peace in the carefully, deliberately hidden facility. The hustle and bustle of the day almost forgotten by those who, like himself, paced the long winding halls. And it is the only time he’s ever seen a ghost. 

That ghost with hair the color of a sunset. 

The first time Kirschtaria had seen her was the very night they had all arrived, right after a briefing and on the way to his new residence. The lights had dimmed for the night so suddenly, and without clear warning, and he remembers clearly the shrieks and gasps and laughter which floated down the halls as everyone went their separate ways, shocked at how late it had actually been. Hadn't it been well past midnight then? Or had it been somewhat earlier than that? He could barely recall, but he had nearly made it to his room when he’d felt his skin prickle, and the fine gold hairs on the back of his neck stand up. His gaze moved beneath the fall of his lashes, obscured by his bangs. He had been certain no other was assigned to this hall, this area.

But there she was at the end of the hall, a red haired phantom. Her hair had been so long, nearly brushing the backs of her knees. He had almost thought she was solid, had it not been for her lack of shadow and how fuzzy she was at the edges. Bleeding into the world, or disappearing from it. His chest had begun to ache, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been holding his breath. 

When she had stolen it from him. 

Her head had begun to turn, and he had dipped into his room, suddenly panicked. Suddenly frightened. The door groaned as it shut at his behest, too fast for it’s usual setup. What was he thinking? Why was he scared of what, a ghost? A phantom?

Heroic Spirits were phantoms, he reasoned with himself. And surely she was no Heroic Spirit, they hadn't even been allowed the rights to summon yet. No one, insofar as he was aware, had been given such permission outside of certain staff. And spirits had always been said to exist, though he had not seen them himself. They were a crucial part of certain sects of magecraft, he knew that well enough. But the likelihood that on the first day someone was allowed to preform any magecraft of that sort was abysmally low. The notion was laughable! So that meant she was just a hallucination. A trick of his mind. A desire to see something in the half-illuminated space, to give some semblance of reason for the thundering of his heart and the prickling sensation which had manifested on his skin.

It wouldn’t happen again.

And it didn’t. Not for days, for weeks.

He went about life in Chaldea as usual, getting to know and understand his teammates. Getting to know and understand how Rayshifting worked and what their mission was, their calling. Time ticked ever onward, and he found himself caught up in countless hours spent studying the nearly incomprehensible theorems and ideologies which surrounded Chaldea’s mere existence. He spent his time offering guidance to the carefully formed Team A, taking the burden of being the leader. Holding such with pride. In that time he had stopped lingering on the idea of a potential haunting. Though he had caught himself glancing about from time to time, to look for a familiar shape. For long sunset red hair, gilded at the roots. For a familiar white uniform, the standard issue amongst Chaldea’s candidates, just different enough from the staff uniform.

He took note of how jumpy Zemlupus had become. How he, too, looked about or fixated on the space between staff and other candidates. As though he, too, had seen something that didn't belong. Or someone. But any time he attempted to broach the subject with his fellow Master candidate, the pale haired youth would glare at him and grumble some excuse to get away. It was surprisingly difficult to get him to stay and chat, even with Pepe around. But, at least, he knew if he couldn't get one to talk, the other would surely pull through. And though he wanted to know what secret person had caught Kadoc's eye, he wasn't sure he wanted to talk about who or what he had seen that first day. Wasn't sure he was ready to broach such a topic.

But steps had to be taken, and securing Pepe's time could be difficult at times, but at least a food offering tended to secure anyone's time.

"He's looking for a girl," the elder chimed up cheerfully, dessert fork held daintily above a slice of pale yellow-white cheesecake, strawberry sauce dripping down the side. Wodime turned his gaze back to him, head tilting ever so slightly. "Oh yes, a girl with blue hair and dark skin."

"Oddly specific." Wodime stirred his tea slowly before drawing his spoon free from the cup. He tapped it lightly on the edge of the porcelain once, twice, and then set it upon the saucer. He hated to say it, but there was a notable lack of diversity among the staff. Someone with dark skin, depending on how dark it was, would have stood out in the otherwise homogeneous space. The blue hair, not so much. Not too unique all things considered. But he couldn't recall anyone with that particular mix. And it confirmed that she wasn't the same person as _his_ ghost. That girl with red-gold hair and warm brown skin. "However-"

"There is no one who fits that particular description here. No one has colored their hair since arrival. No one has had that kind of time." When he smiled, it was dazzling. Warm and good humored, reaching those bright eyes. "And I'm doubtful that anyone is using a guise to play a cruel trick on him."

There was little that Wodime could do with the new information, no more than store it away to go over in his down time. A ghost with blue hair. A ghost with red-gold hair. Two different, perhaps, figures, seen by both he and Kadoc. He wasn't sure if it was some stroke of luck or circumstance, because it couldn't be a curse. That would be silly. Or improbable. Either or, he wasn't terribly put out by either. He played the facts over and over in his head, combing through his memories of that first night when he had seen her.

And he wondered if he had actually seen her again since then? If he had just missed her. Had she been in the background, bleeding out of his reality, of his space when he wasn't focused. Or was he so oblivious to her because he had spent so long trying to get involved with every member of Team A?

If he looked for her, really looked, would he gain some answer, some unspoken truth?

He wouldn’t see her again until he least expected it. She only manifested during the witching hours, between the hours of 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.. She paced the halls, half obscured by shadow. Not quite solid, but not entirely translucent. He swore in the moonlight, whenever it managed to pierce the heavy clouds, she looked nearly solid, that she cast an actual shadow. That she was suddenly tangible.

For a while he did wonder if she was a member of staff who was astral projecting in their sleep. Treating this as some kind of a lucid dream.

Always leading the way to a certain room. A ghost-story of a room.

They called it The Lost Room.

It took a lot of nerve, he realized, to open the door and step in, but it was only after she had gone into that lonely, mythical room. He wasn’t sure what to expect. What he might see. What he might know. But he wanted to know. Had to know at this point, because if he missed the opportunity it would weigh at the back of his mind and distract him from then on. And he did not have time for regrets, not really. Not with the hope of accomplishing his work with those he called friends at his side. So he opened the door, putting his misgivings aside, and stepped within.


End file.
